“Admiral, the Victorious is changing course, she is heading our way. Achilles is burning,” said Andrews.
“It’s time,” she said to herself as she signalled to Lieutenant Nilsson to put her on with the Fleet.
“This is Admiral Jarvis. We are at our objective. The Station is clear but we are facing a fully operational Victorious. All group leaders begin your attack, she must be stopped, no matter the cost. Marines are clear to start your landings. Stay close to your escorts, this is going to be rough. I repeat, all offensive actions are authorised. Good luck,” she said in a calm voice.
As her orders spread through the Fleet, the bulk of the vessels turned to face the damaged battleship Victorious. Only the Santa Maria and Santa Cruz, with almost two thousand marines on board, and their group of four escort gunboats continued on their trajectory towards the Titan Naval Station. The gunboats were from the deck of the CCS Wasp and carried a dozen men and massive firepower. Today these four craft were configured for point defence. Each one carried additional defensive pods to protect against incoming projectiles and missiles. They pushed out in front of the Santa Maria.
The CCS Crusader, though new, had not been tested in battle before and this was her first opportunity to prove herself against the toughest opponent she could ever expect to face, a CCS battleship.
Spartan and Teresa were sitting towards the rear of their marine landing craft. It was cramped and much smaller than they expected. It carried a full platoon of marines inside its thick armoured structure as well as extra supplies, spare weapons and some heavy equipment. Everything a commando unit could need to establish a beachhead for the rest of the marines.
It was shaped like an angry wasp, its legs stuck up below and its power plants mounted high above the fuselage. Unlike the gunboats it was lightly armed with just defensive weapon mounts fitted around the body, each one designed to be operated by the marines onboard. Spartan and Teresa had been commandeered to control the right-hand door gun though the name was somewhat of a misnomer. The weapon was a twin -barrelled machinegun, an improved version of the same weapon used generations before in the ground wars on Earth. It might be low tech but it was reliable and functioned both on the ground and in the vacuum of space. The combat landing craft were unpressurised so only those in sealed suits could either crew or travel in them. The front of the craft was rounded and massively thick, apparently in tests it could sustain a single impact from a capital ship mounted railgun and against lighter weapons could easily absorb substantial fire over the short time it took to reach ground or ship based targets.
As they moved from the safety of the CCS Santa Maria they travelled past the massive ship from the left side and moved alongside as the rest of the assault craft joined them. As they moved into position, one of the gunboats came nearer, it was easily five times the size of the landing craft and bristled with weapons. Though the craft looked huge it was miniscule in comparison to the Santa Maria which in turn was dwarfed by the size of the battlecruiser CCS Crusader.
From their position they had a clear view of the ongoing battle of the two juggernauts, the Crusader and the Victorious. The two ships were several kilometres apart and bombarding each other with volley after volley. The great bulk, as well as the thick armour of each vessel, precluded any quick victory and as they hammered away at each other the small number of other craft circled around, trying to assist but without drawing too much attention from the wounded warship. After a dozen broadsides the ships looked no further from the end of their battle than when they started.
Slightly off to the right of the two titans the bright flashes continued from the wreck of the Hector at it continued to burn and tear itself apart. Though the ship was destroyed, scores of lifeboats continued to burst out from the damaged sections as the crew desperately tried to avoid the savage inferno of the dying cruiser.
The blazing hulk of Ajax drifted slowly towards the battle but with the damage it must have sustained it was going nowhere fast.
Seated ahead of Teresa and Spartan was the rest of their improvised squad of commandos, waiting for their landing. Each was fully equipped with their sealed suits, weapons and additional equipment. Marcus and Jesus were part of the next squad on the other side of the landing craft and like them, they had been assigned a door gun. Half of the marines were new recruits from the Santa Maria and though they were all keen to get stuck into action, they also looked nervous, really nervous.
The craft shook and the passengers would have rolled to the rear if it weren’t for the sturdy straps that kept each of them firmly in their positions. Another reason for the heavy-duty harnesses was that they kept the marines secure when travelling in gravity free space. Contrary to what a few of the recruits had thought, modern science had not solved the problem of artificial gravity other than some basic improvements, such as the rotating habitation sections on the capital ships.
Colonel West, in his own distinctive armour, moved along the loading section checking on each of the marines. He certainly looked the part, with his scarred but well cared for armour and a customised L48 rifle on his back.
“We are doing one pass of the docking area. It looks like they have units guarding all the main approaches and have set up anti-aircraft emplacements near the habitation domes. So we’re going to have to go in hot and stabilise the situation. First, the gunboats will move in and clear a path through the anti-aircraft mounts, we’ll follow and take the docking hub. The rest of the commando units will land at the key points along the hub and loading area. We have four landing craft bringing in our commando company. One landing craft will also bring in an engineering platoon to help with any problems we might face. Once we’re inside, our job is to head to the Command Centre so we can shut down the Station’s weapon system. Once captured, we need to hold the area and wait for reinforcements. With these down the blockade on Prime will be lifted. Even more importantly, it will allow us to land transports and shuttles to take off survivors. We are expecting anything up to four hundred thousand people here and who knows how many casualties. Until the rest arrive we can expect to be outnumbered by at least ten to one, so we must move fast and hard. Until the weapon systems are offline we can only get a small number of landing craft in. We can’t take the entire Station on our own, not even with five hundred could we do it in the time that we have. We have to get the guns offline so General Rivers can bring in the cavalry. Understood?” he asked.
“Now don’t try and bring civilians to the landing craft, we cannot take anybody without a sealed suit and that will probably just be us. Leave the rescue to the jarheads following us in. We do the fighting, the rest of the marines clear up, no exception!” he ordered.
The marines all nodded, some of them hitting their helmets with their ammunition clips. The Colonel then moved further to the front so he could check on their progress. The first wave of the assault consisting of four shuttles and two gunboats went ahead and were just a few kilometres from the Station. Inside their craft a red light started to flash, from their training Spartan knew it meant they were expecting hostile fire.
“Incoming!” shouted one of the commandos at the front over his headset.
A number of fist-sized holes appeared in the outer skin of the landing craft as a long burst of heavy weapons fire raked the craft. Streaks of projectiles blasted past the craft as they moved ever closer. Spartan ducked back, flinching from the incoming fire. The landing craft was heavily armoured as they were designed to get troops to the ground when under fire but these projectiles were substantial. They were obviously expecting trouble.